The present invention relates generally to photographic equipment and in particular to photographic apparatus for adding artificial backgrounds to photographs during the photographic process.
Commercial advertisers are resolute to place an advertised product or subject in an atmosphere aesthetically pleasing to a prospective purchaser. Difficulties arise, however, when the background needed to create a desired atmosphere is geographically distant from or out of season in the locale in which the product or subject is located. The difficulty increases with the size of the product advertised. Such advertising may become inordinately expensive if the subject becomes too large, such as a truck or automobile, or impossible in the case of a house or other building if not in the desired season.
The most commonly used technique employed by commercial photographers to overcome this problem involves a process whereby an artificial background is added to a photograph during the developmental stage. However, this process is expensive and time consuming in that it frequently entails a substantial amount of touch-up work to the resulting photograph around the outline of the subject.
Consequently, it is desirable to provide a process for adding an artificial background to a photograph which does not require a significant amount of touch-up work to the resulting photograph. In addition, it is desirable to provide a process which adds the artificial background directly to the film negative; i.e., during the photographic process, rather than during the development of the film negative.
In general, the photographic apparatus of the present invention accomplishes these objectives by providing a conventional view camera that has been modified to add a pair of pivotable masking plates located between the lens and the film cartridge. The masking plates are independently operable to be placed in either a first inoperative position along the sidewall of the camera away from the film cartridge and a second operative position against the film cartridge. The two plates have attached thereto background and product masks respectively which are created from a positive film type photograph taken of the desired product. The product mask however is first applied to a transparency of the desired background scene. Once the masks are attached to the plates, the positions of the plates are oriented via an adjustment apparatus so that the masks on each plate are properly aligned or "registered" with the projection of the product through the lens onto the back plate of the camera. The film negative is then exposed twice, first with the background masking plate in its operative position and secondly with the product masking plate in its operative position. The former exposure is taken of the desired product and the latter exposure is made simply with a white light source in front of the camera lens to expose the film negative to the background transparency. The resulting photograph is remarkably realistic and generally requires minimal touch-up.